So, one downside of living in Las Vegas when you are trying to find people to teach on Facebook is that occasionally you message someone whose profile says they are from Vegas, but they actually live somewhere else and just think that Las Vegas is cool. Thus it was that we messaged someone and started a conversation about volleyball, and before you know it, it is a group chat with us and 26 young men from Ghana titled "Volleyball Players Only." They mostly just say things like, "Hey," "cool," "how r u," and the thumbs up emoji. I think we started a sensation.
In other news, we no longer have to wear masks if we are vaccinated! We wore them at church yesterday, but from now on we don't need to wear them visiting people or at church, and most stores don't even require it. It is a small change, but it feels exciting. Things are looking up!
We had met and started teaching a family with a mom who is a member but the dad is not. The mom has a ten year old daughter that wanted more experience with church, and so with some help from the relief society president, the mom decided to come back to church after a long time without coming! We helped them come to church several times, and then it turned out they actually lived in the ward next door, so we helped transition them over, but stayed in touch. The daughter had committed to be baptized in one of the lessons we were in, and now she is taking that step on Saturday! Their ward has sister missionaries, so they asked if we would come and baptize the daughter. It is such a beautiful thing to see a family come back to church and grow closer together.
Also, Nancy, our super sweet southern grandma is getting baptized on Saturday! We reviewed all the interview questions with her, and she passed with flying colors. When we talked about the law of chastity, she told us a story about one time when she went to a restaurant with some friends who began to use some vulgar language. She told us that she said (in her mind, not out loud) "Ok, you grannies!" and got up to use the bathroom and then just left without telling anyone. Her little insult just made us laugh a bunch because she is the sweetest woman I've ever met and is just so amazingly strong in her convictions. She has a pretty tough family life, but I think it has been very meaningful for her to find like minded people and extra family at church.
Shortly after making sure Nancy was ready for her interview, we did a videocall with one of our English class students who has lived here in the US for about six months. At the end of our last call, he asked us what made our church different than the Catholic church, and we set up this visit to talk more about it. As we began talking, it became evident that after several weeks of attending our English class and a branch party, he got curious and started looking up what our church was all about online, and now he wanted to hear it from us. We taught the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ (which is hands down my favorite thing to teach). When we started explaining Joseph's dilemma of being around so many churches and not knowing where to go, he exclaimed, "That's my question! That's my question too!" He was very excited and had seen something about the first vision online, so he really connected and enjoyed it. At the end he asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon and decided to start coming to church. A very sweet spirit was present.
There is an app available for missionaries called the EdApp which provides some really great training on doing missionary work digitally. Our mission president re-emphasized how badly he wanted everyone to complete all the courses on it, so we thought that we had better hurry and finish it too. We did one during dinner about responding to people who go online and request a personalized study session with the missionaries on a topic of their choice. It was interesting training, but neither Elder Gastelum nor I had ever before received such a request.
We got to the end of the day and were sitting together around 9:30 filling out some records and reports, when we suddenly got the double email and text notification combo that means we received an online referral! And do you know what the person referring herself requested? A personalized study session about the purpose of life. This was the same exact thing we had studied for a few hours earlier! We knew exactly what to do and what resources to send their way. We were able to start a text conversation that went on for about 40 minutes and set up a time to meet and share more. I guess God gives us whatever we are ready for. I heard a quote recently that goes something like, "If we care enough to improve ourselves, God will enlarge our effective circle of influence." Maybe it was a coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidences.
As we sat there that night, I was just blown away by how happy I felt. Nothing huge had happened that day, but we were able to witness so many people have their lives touched by God. We were lucky enough to be part of it, the kids on 'take your child to work day' as we go about the Father's business. I was trying to think when in my life I had ever felt this happy and had a really hard time thinking of any other specific day that had been as good. There might be a few I could count on one hand. But I am just so humbled and grateful that I got to be here. I don't even have words to really explain how much heart and soul is put into missionary work, but neither can I explain how it feels when you see God's hand do something you could never do on your own.
One last story. So, on one of my last weeks with Elder Stewart, we had a missionary stay overnight with us because he was going home early. We weren't sure why, but he was a nice missionary that had only been out for a few weeks. We finished a couple things we had to do, and then we were driving in our area near the airport. We were a little early, so we weren't sure if we should just drop him off at the airport 40 minutes early, or if we should do something else. We decided to park the car and walk around a residential neighborhood we had never been in before. We got our pass-along cards ready with our new missionary who had never street contacted before in his life. We talked to several people who showed little interest, and then we saw one lady walking into her garage. We flagged her down and said hi, and she smiled and said she was already a member. We didn't have her records, but we wrote down her number and went on our way. And that was the end of the story. Until several days later we went back to visit their family, and they fed us dinner. We found out that she is the only member of the church in her family! It was pretty amazing to me that in the literal very last moments of a missionary's mission, we were blessed with a miracle like that. In his twilight hour, we found an incredible family looking for some gospel light. Miracles must be real.
'Til we meet,
Elder Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment